23rd April 2012, 02:30 PM
P Prentice Wrote:somewhere amidst the miasma is a valid point
if the lpa archaeologists dont charge for development advice - why cant we?
There's absolutely nothing stopping any contractor charging for development advice, other than the fact that most developers don't want to pay for it (and won't pay for it if they know that the Council will do it for nothing anyway). As it stands, any potential developer can go to a contractor and say 'I'm looking at building a new housing estate in that field, do you think there's likely to be any archaeological issue?' Indeed, some big developers already do this as a matter of course, either in advance of purchasing land or before submitting a planning application. The contractor's assessment would then be submitted in support of the application, and would be considered by the planner / Council archaeologist. If the conclusions drawn are reasonable, and any mitigation proposals are sensible, there's no reason why they wouldn't be adopted wholesale by the planning department (conversely, if the Council archaeologist thinks that the assessment is wrong or underplays the potential archaeological issue, he or she is at liberty to disagree with the conclusion / mitigation proposals, and ask for something else).
Where I'd disagree with PP is in the scale of this. As I said, some large developers already do this, but for the majority of applications and applicants it would simply be an additional expense that they may not need and certainly wouldn't want to pay. For most householders putting up a small extension, it wouldn't really be necessary to pay a contractor a couple of hundred quid for an assessment, as the chances are fairly slim that it would raise an archaeological issue. If it turns out an application of this type did raise an issue, it would likely be picked up by the Council archaeologist anyway, who'd identify it for no extra cost. Yes, the householder would still have to appoint a contractor to undertake any mitigation work, but they'd at least have saved a bit of money on the initial assessment.
You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum